A fresh change

A couple move cities to embrace a new lease of life, not just for themselves but for a 1920s home as well

- Catherine Steel

In January 2022, AnneMarie Tangney and her husband Steve Moratti found themselves at a lifestyle crossroads. Living in Dunedin, their children had left the nest, AnneMarie was feeling like she needed a change from working as a general practitioner and Steve was no longer working at the local university. Should they stay in Dunedin? Or move to Auckland to be close to family and where AnneMarie had been offered an appealing role at a city hospital?

The couple chose the latter and are grateful they did. “I’d become a burnt-out GP in Dunedin, so I was looking for a new job,” she says.

“I found a role looking after the health of people living with an eating disorder at Greenlane Clinical Centre. Steve had lost his job during the Covid era and all our kids had left Dunedin, so we thought: ‘What are we doing here?’ We are originally from Auckland but hadn’t lived here for 30 years. It was a no-brainer to come back here where our daughter and extended family are.”

The house hunting began while they were still in Dunedin and they set their sights on homes located one bus ride or a walk away from Greenlane Clinical Centre. But New Zealand was in the tail-wind of Covid lockdowns, so few houses were on the market.

An open mind

With AnneMarie’s job already in place, time was of the essence to fi nd a home. “All our bidding was done online, we didn’t see any homes in person. Our daughter was viewing some houses for us. Generally, they were nice but we were being outbid at auctions.”